SpaceX's Elon Musk to Reveal Mars Colonization Ideas This Year

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Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur behind the private
spaceflight company SpaceX, says he will unveil his concepts for
Mars colonization later this year.

In an "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit Monday evening (Jan.
5), Musk told readers that the details of his Mars Colonial
Transporter would be unveiled by the end of the year, and that
the plan would be different from the
Dragon capsules and Falcon 9 rockets SpaceX is flying
today.

The goal will be to send 100 metric tons (110 tons) of "useful
payload," he added. "This obviously requires a very big
spaceship and booster system," Musk said.

This year, SpaceX will also reveal plans for spacesuits that
will meet both design aesthetics and utility requirements, Musk
noted. Although he did not specify where the spacesuits would
be used, it is possible that they could form the basis for
future Mars exploration.

SpaceX is the first private company to deliver cargo to the
International Space Station, which it did for the first time in
2012. The company has a $1.6 billion contract to provide 12
delivery missions to the station for NASA. A second company,
Orbital Sciences, has a $1.9 billion deal with NASA for eight
delivery missions.

Elon
Musk founded SpaceX, where he is both CEO and chief
designer, in 2002 with the goal of flying people in space. Last
September, NASA picked the company as one of two firms to fly
U.S. astronauts to the station beginning in 2017 under a
separate contract. (Boeing was the other company selected.)

SpaceX's next flight to the space station, its fifth delivery
flight so far, is set to launch at 4:47 a.m. EST (0947 GMT) on
Saturday (Jan. 10) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station. During that mission, a Dragon resupply ship will
launch toward the station, and SpaceX will also attempt to land
the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on an "autonomous
spaceport drone ship" in the Atlantic Ocean. The mission was
initially set to launch on Tuesday (Jan. 6), but a last-minute
rocket issue delayed the flight.

While Musk discussed space travel possibilities that extend far
into the future, he also mentioned some of the systems that the
company is currently developing, including the
reusable rocket test this week.

In response to a question about the planned Falcon 9
first-stage rocket landing, Musk said the stage would use
"mostly gravity" to stay on the robotic ship, with "steel shoes
over the landing feet as a precautionary measure."

Previously, Musk had said there was a
50 percent chance of mission success. But when he was
pressed by a reader as to how he came up with that percentage,
he said, "I pretty much made that up. I have no idea."

Musk did write that the innovative "hypersonic grid fins" on
the rocket are vital for the landing attempt.

"The grid fins are super important for landing with precision,"
he wrote. "The aerodynamic forces are way too strong for the
nitrogen thrusters. In particular, achieving pitch trim is
hopeless. Our atmosphere is like molasses at Mach 4!"

Musk also suggested that SpaceX could work on making the second
stage of the Falcon 9 reusable, as the company is attempting to
do with the first stage, but he said the resources would be
best suited for a mission to Mars. In the meantime, he is
working on making the rocket as light as possible. [ Red
Dragon: Mars Mission Idea with SpaceX Capsules ]

"With sub-cooled propellant, I think we can get the Falcon 9
upper stage mass ratio (excluding payload) to somewhere between
25 and 30. Another way of saying that is the upper stage would
be close to 97 percent propellant by mass," Musk wrote.

One reader asked how Musk is able to learn so quickly. "I do
kinda feel like my head is full!" he responded. "My
context-switching penalty is high, and my process isolation is
not what it used to be."

"Frankly, though, I think most people can learn a lot more than
they think they can," he added. "They sell themselves short
without trying. One bit of advice: It is important to view
knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand
the fundamental principles, i.e., the trunk and big branches,
before you get into the leaves/details, or there is nothing for
them to hang on to."

Musk also answered questions, ranging from the mundane (he gets
six hours of sleep a night) to what games he plays (the Kerbal
Space Program).

And aside from Mars, readers wanted to know what other places
in the solar system would be good to explore. One reader asked
if Jupiter's icy moon Europa should be a target.